PM re­jects Trump’s ‘un­help­ful’ spec­u­la­tions

Theresa May has re­buked Don­ald Trump over his claim the per­pe­tra­tors of the Par­sons Green Tube bomb­ing had been “in the sights” of Scot­land Yard.

Af­ter chair­ing a meet­ing of the Gov­ern­ment’s Cobra emer­gen­cies com­mit­tee, the prime min­is­ter said it was not “help­ful” to spec­u­late on what was an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

She said the po­lice and se­cu­rity ser­vices were still work­ing to iden­tify those re­spon­si­ble for the at­tack on the packed com­muter train.

The pres­i­dent’s in­ter­ven­tion threat­ened to place fresh strain on the US-UK in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing re­la­tion­ship which has come un­der pres­sure a num­ber of times since he en­tered the White House.

In a trade­mark tweet is­sued within hours of the blast, Mr Trump wrote: “An­other at­tack in Lon­don by a loser ter­ror­ist.

“These are sick and de­mented peo­ple who were in the sights of Scot­land Yard. Must be proac­tive!”

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Po­lice said the US pres­i­dent’s com­ments – which did not cor­re­spond with any in­for­ma­tion re­leased by the UK au­thor­i­ties – were “un­help­ful” and “pure spec­u­la­tion”.

The lat­est spat comes af­ter Bri­tish po­lice tem­po­rar­ily sus­pended in­tel­li­gence­shar­ing with the US in the wake of the Manch­ester Arena bomb­ing fol­low­ing leaks to Amer­i­can me­dia.